But my sense has always been that the Galaxy-class, as originally fielded in 2360s, was a powerful and respectable vessel. Certainly the most powerful of any other class of starship then in Starfleet service. But it was, in my view, not as powerful as it could have been. Rather than being as powerful as the spaceframe and power systems could make it, the ship was probably designed to be as powerful as Starfleet's experts felt it would need to be.

Recall the situation around the time the Galaxies were entering service. A peaceful, allied Klingon Empire. The Romulans in total isolation. No contact yet with the Borg or Dominion. Some fighting with the Cardassians, sure, and other powers, but no one that really could rival the Federation in an all-out war, if it came down to it. The Galaxies were designed in peacetime, and I imagine that their tactical systems were designed by people thinking, "OK, well, how much firepower does this thing need to make it the strongest ship in the fleet and make sure it's competitive with anything else operating in the region? Let's figure out what that much firepower is and go with that."

But, in short order, the Romulans were back, the Borg were around, the Klingons went apeshit and the Dominion showed up. I think the Galaxies we saw kicking so much ass in DS9 were the ones that Starfleet had outfitted to maximize the combat capability of the class, rather than just meet the bureaucratic requirements of the design tender. And that was probably a very substantial increase in firepower indeed (and was probably also done to most every ship in Starfleet that was capable of it).

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I absolutely agree. I think your theory is by far the best one I've seen. The Enterprise-D was a peacetime ship, whereas the kickass Galaxies we see in DS9 are true warships.

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For all intents and purposes, though, it's the same peacetime design, only that the Enterprise-D belonged to the first batch of ships and the next batch featured some improvements that would be expected in any design after a few years of service (although on a case-by-case basis). I don't think starship designs are static--they evolve over time and incorporate new technologies and ideas along the way.

Had the Enterprise-D not fallen at Veridian III, she may have been upgraded and might even have been in the process of being so at the start of Generations if the new bridge module (and perhaps even a new stellar cartography lab) was a first step.

For all intents and purposes, though, it's the same peacetime design, only that the Enterprise-D belonged to the first batch of ships and the next batch featured some improvements that would be expected in any design after a few years of service (although on a case-by-case basis). I don't think starship designs are static--they evolve over time and incorporate new technologies and ideas along the way.

Had the Enterprise-D not fallen at Veridian III, she may have been upgraded and might even have been in the process of being so at the start of Generations if the new bridge module (and perhaps even a new stellar cartography lab) was a first step.

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Yeah, sort of. I mean, sure, clearly the design of any ship that's in sustained production will evolve, just as specific ships will evolve as systems are upgraded and swapped out. Absolutely. But what I'm talking about is more than just replacing phaser coil 46 with the slightly improved phaser coil 47. I'm talking less than a rebuild of the class, but more than just a gradual evolving. The Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place, and I'm sure Starfleet responded by making sure its most powerful ships became more powerful still.

For all intents and purposes, though, it's the same peacetime design, only that the Enterprise-D belonged to the first batch of ships and the next batch featured some improvements that would be expected in any design after a few years of service (although on a case-by-case basis). I don't think starship designs are static--they evolve over time and incorporate new technologies and ideas along the way.

Had the Enterprise-D not fallen at Veridian III, she may have been upgraded and might even have been in the process of being so at the start of Generations if the new bridge module (and perhaps even a new stellar cartography lab) was a first step.

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Yeah, sort of. I mean, sure, clearly the design of any ship that's in sustained production will evolve, just as specific ships will evolve as systems are upgraded and swapped out. Absolutely. But what I'm talking about is more than just replacing phaser coil 46 with the slightly improved phaser coil 47. I'm talking less than a rebuild of the class, but more than just a gradual evolving. The Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place, and I'm sure Starfleet responded by making sure its most powerful ships became more powerful still.

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I think that any improvements in the Galaxy class were already in the works before the Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place. As soon as a new design is launched, Starfleet is already thinking of ways to make it better.

For all intents and purposes, though, it's the same peacetime design, only that the Enterprise-D belonged to the first batch of ships and the next batch featured some improvements that would be expected in any design after a few years of service (although on a case-by-case basis). I don't think starship designs are static--they evolve over time and incorporate new technologies and ideas along the way.

Had the Enterprise-D not fallen at Veridian III, she may have been upgraded and might even have been in the process of being so at the start of Generations if the new bridge module (and perhaps even a new stellar cartography lab) was a first step.

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Yeah, sort of. I mean, sure, clearly the design of any ship that's in sustained production will evolve, just as specific ships will evolve as systems are upgraded and swapped out. Absolutely. But what I'm talking about is more than just replacing phaser coil 46 with the slightly improved phaser coil 47. I'm talking less than a rebuild of the class, but more than just a gradual evolving. The Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place, and I'm sure Starfleet responded by making sure its most powerful ships became more powerful still.

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I think that any improvements in the Galaxy class were already in the works before the Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place. As soon as a new design is launched, Starfleet is already thinking of ways to make it better.

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No, I don't think that really holds up. Again, you're right in a technical sense, in that all ships and classes will evolve. But I think the Federation, given a rapidly changing strategic environment, wouldn't just shrug and say, "Hey, our ships are improving all the time, anyway." They'd ask themselves what they could do over and above that general, gradual evolving of ships to make sure Starfleet kept pace with whatever was out there. There's no reason these processes have to be mutually exclusive, but it seems odd to me that we'd assume that Starfleet would place its trust entirely in gradual change and not bother trying to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

Yeah, sort of. I mean, sure, clearly the design of any ship that's in sustained production will evolve, just as specific ships will evolve as systems are upgraded and swapped out. Absolutely. But what I'm talking about is more than just replacing phaser coil 46 with the slightly improved phaser coil 47. I'm talking less than a rebuild of the class, but more than just a gradual evolving. The Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place, and I'm sure Starfleet responded by making sure its most powerful ships became more powerful still.

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I think that any improvements in the Galaxy class were already in the works before the Alpha Quadrant became a meaner place. As soon as a new design is launched, Starfleet is already thinking of ways to make it better.

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No, I don't think that really holds up.

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Sure, it does and quite well. There's nothing onscreen that says it doesn't.

For all intents and purposes, what we see of later Galaxy-class was going to happen anyway as lessons learned from earlier ships are naturally incorporated into newer ones (the Enterprise was probably an improvement over the Galaxy and a newer Galaxy-class ship would surely be an improvement over the Enterprise). As I said in an earlier post, had things gone differently, the Enterprise would likely have received these upgrades as well.

"Hey, our ships are improving all the time, anyway." They'd ask themselves what they could do over and above that general, gradual evolving of ships to make sure Starfleet kept pace with whatever was out there. There's no reason these processes have to be mutually exclusive, but it seems odd to me that we'd assume that Starfleet would place its trust entirely in gradual change and not bother trying to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

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Nah, it's simply a case of keeping ships up to date as much as possible.

The DS9 Galaxies are only a few years younger than the E-D. Even further, the Galaxies in DS9 performed much better in comparison, which would indicate some kind of large-scale wartime improvement, rather than simple evolution of design.

It doesn't have to be a large-scale wartime improvement, though. The Borg and the subsequent Dominion War really didn't have to justify an upgrade of the design or the scrapping of the Galaxy-class' original mission. New ideas come along and are just incorporated with sometimes it being a case of good timing (I could see the first of the uprated Galaxy-class ships being built even before Wolf 359).

It doesn't have to be a large-scale wartime improvement, though. The Borg and the subsequent Dominion War really didn't have to justify an upgrade of the design or the scrapping of the Galaxy-class' original mission. New ideas come along and are just incorporated with sometimes it being a case of good timing (I could see the first of the uprated Galaxy-class ships being built even before Wolf 359).

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But upgrades and improvements that were scheduled to happen anyway are, by definition, not reactions to changing circumstances. And I think it's odd to assume that Starfleet wouldn't have aggressively responded to the changing circumstances.

It doesn't have to be a large-scale wartime improvement, though. The Borg and the subsequent Dominion War really didn't have to justify an upgrade of the design or the scrapping of the Galaxy-class' original mission. New ideas come along and are just incorporated with sometimes it being a case of good timing (I could see the first of the uprated Galaxy-class ships being built even before Wolf 359).

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But upgrades and improvements that were scheduled to happen anyway are, by definition, not reactions to changing circumstances.

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Actually, upgrades and improvements can occur at any time, even before certain circumstances.

And I think it's odd to assume that Starfleet wouldn't have aggressively responded to the changing circumstances.

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Who says they didn't? It just that it doesn't necessarily have to involve a sudden beefing up of the Galaxy-class. That could have already been in the works due to lessons learned from the first batch of ships deployed (the same was true as far back as the NX-class when lessons learned from NX-01 Enterprise were incorporated into NX-02 Columbia).

When war broke out, Starfleet would likely have looked at their resources and ways to improve it.

During peacetime, the Galaxy class was a bit of a jack of all trades, don't get me wrong it had powerful defensive and offensive abilities, but at the same time they had a ton of equipment and space dedicated to exploration, science labs recreational facilities etc.

For the war they would have removed all families, replaced most of the science personel with security and soldiers, it's not hard to imagine each galaxy coming with its own batallion of 2000 troops. Shuttles would be replaced with squadrons of fighters, science equipment would be stripped out and replaced with armouries and non essential equipment would be stripped and replaced with extra weaponary and generators for more powerful shielding.

The Galaxy was a versatile ship and as large as it was, ideal for conversion from a multi mission explorer to a heavy cruiser or dreadnaught

It's not that I'm discounting the theory (believe me, I'm not), but I also think it's a valid theory that some improvements of the Galaxy-class were not dictated by the Dominion War and just were already in place.

But I do believe that the Galaxy-class ships we saw in the Dominion War didn't carry any families members but carried more tactical & medical personnel...but as far as them being transformed into essentially "Battlestar Galacticas" each with dozens of starfighters, I don't quite see that (shuttles would still be needed, even just as evacuation vehicles). As deep-space vessels, they'd still need science equipment, although it would be for tactical analysis & research and long-range intelligence-gathering purposes. And while we saw Galaxy-class ships deployed like capital ships in mixed fleet operations, individually, they'd probably serve as troop transports like the alternate Enterprise did in "Yesterday's Enterprise."

The Enterprise-D was well short of the historical age of second line status. Which was probably something like twenty plus years if we go by Star Trek III or lines from Conspiracy and Yesterday's Enterprise. Also previous ships were not obsoleted solely by technology but to a large degree by ship displacement. The Galaxy is still the largest combatant by size.

In relative power it probably still better than a vast majority of Star Fleet save the brand new Sovereign class. I don't believe the Akiras to be all that recent(Nebula and Akira registry number comparison) and would have been plagued by the same peacetime design considerations all pre-Borg ships were built to.

Not as powerful as Starfleet could build ships, but most powerful in the fleet composed of cruisers and lesser vessels at the time. Perhaps ships like Sovereign could match her or were slightly inferior or superior, but not by much.

I don't believe in fanwanking and huge gaps in power between these ships, as the time span between them is just too short for there to be much of a difference.

Out of Starfleet's innumerable vessels, only the Sovereign and Ambassador are larger than a Galaxy's stardrive... and not by much. Even if we assume a Galaxy's saucer is completely deadweight, there's no reason to assume an upgraded Galaxy would be less than a match for a Sovereign.

Also, for whatever reason, the Romulans must punch below their own weight (although I would bet that a D'deridex would still be top dog in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants). Perhaps much of their starships' volumes are used by equipment for their quantum singularities?

Agreed, it doesn't really make sense for the Sovereign to be so advanced that it makes a Galaxy obsolete

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And then we'd have to consider what "obsolete" would really mean, too. If the Miranda, Oberth, Excelsior, etc. have shown, Starfleet will probably squeeze as much as it can from models that are clearly dependable, despite being decades old. Those ships function primarily as some kind of support or front line duty, and they served side-by-side with vessels much more advanced than them. Even if an Excelsior served alongside a Sovereign (which was almost the case with Nemesis, along with other Starfleet ships), that Excelsior ship can't and won't be written off so quickly. So the Galaxy being obsolete and thus unusable when there are Oberths still in action seems to be an exaggeration.

The Galaxy class is supposed to have a 100 year lifespan, so you would assume that it was designed with significant upgrades in mind. I also doubt there would be a big difference if any between the Galaxy & Sovereign classes as they were only launched several years apart & upgrades would be compatible with either ship.

I have always thought of the Sovereign as a replacement for the Excelsior class rather than the Galaxy. To me it would make more sense for Starfleet to have designed it to replace a much older class ship rather than a relatively new class.

Also it is likely the Sovereign would have been in the design phase when the Galaxy was launched.